Ciel made a mistake. A big one. One that took away the lead that they thought they both had. In his search, he made the mistake of assuming that traffic cameras aren't readily available for viewing at any time. The general public can view any street in London with a Google search, meaning that there was no way that they could track down the Sudoku Killer like this. With one hand on his hip, the Watchdog used the other and scratched his head with a sigh.
"I'm sorry..." he said, disappointed with himself. "I was hasty and that made me careless. It's my fault."
"So we're back to square one, big deal. It happens with the vast majority of murder cases." Alois replied, patting his husband's shoulders before snaking his hands down to hug the other around his middle. "We'll get there."
"We wasted an entire day for a lead that doesn't exist. That was an amateur mistake. I'm supposed to be better than this."
"Yeah, but the thing about that is: you're a person and people make mistakes. Not every case has to go completely smoothly. In my personal experience, it hardly ever does."
With another deep sigh, Ciel collected himself before uttering a forlorn "I suppose..." Still, he was not at all keen to accept anything less than outstanding from himself. "It was just such a stupid mistake..."
"Buddy, trust me, this is not your first mistake and it will most certainly not be the last."
"What other mistakes have I made?"
"When we first met, you took Sebastian's word as iron and for some reason made the leap that if someone's looking into your history, that means that they're involved in 'the incident'." Alois bluntly stated. "You were the Earl of Phantomhive, literally everyone and their grandmother was trying to get dirt on you."
"Yeah, that was really kind of stupid..." the bluenette nodded. "I think I might have just wanted to get back at you for 'tricking' me in to thinking you're pretty."
"No tricks here, Pooch. This is a hundred percent legit." smiled the menace, prompting the other to chuckle along. "But seriously, don't beat yourself up over it. We'll find another lead and we'll get the prick. Business as usual. C'mon, let's get thinking."
"What do we have?" questioned the bluenette, sitting down. "Two suitcases, two activity books, two pieces of paper with some numbers on them, and a few bodyparts?"
"That's the story. Do you know if any bodies have turned up?"
"No. The police don't want us in on their investigation yet. There's been no news of any bodies being found, but that doesn't mean much. Bodies can be anywhere."
"That's a morbid thought."
"In a wall… in a mattress in an alley… anywhere..."
"Are there any bodies in the walls of the mansion?"
Ciel was about to open his mouth to answer, but then he paused to think. "Honestly, I have no idea."
"Delightful. Our kids will be playing in a corpse house."
"Probably not the worst thing to happen to this house. I don't even know the full history of it."
"Fantastic." Alois said, sarcastically as he said it, he smiled all the same. "So, no bodies, but parts? I assume we can't access information as to who these people might be or whether or not they are the same person, right?"
"Right."
"Any odd missing persons reports lately?"
"There's ones that aren't 'odd'?" questioned the bluenette, walking over to his desk and getting on his computer. "Let's check and see if there's any interesting news..."
"I can call Juniour and see if he'll give us some info." suggested his spouse, causing him to shake his head.
"He won't. He's too stubborn. There's no way that he doesn't know that we worked on this case. If he hasn't talked to us, he's not going to. He wants to solve it himself."
"Why?"
"To show that he's smarter than us somehow, I suppose."
"Wouldn't we be an important resource in this particular case?"
"One would think..."
Before the blonde could come up with another joke to reply with, the phone rang, prompting Ciel to reach for it. "I got it." Alois informed, and with a nod, his spouse went back to performing yet another search that should be a concern to Google. "Phantomhive office, this is Alois."
"Hello?" called the voice on the other end. It was that of a woman. It was vaguely familiar, but Alois couldn't place it. "Is this Mister Phantomhive?"
"You'll have to be more specific."
"The one with the eyepatch?"
"Ah. No. I can hand you over to him, though."
"No, it's fine. I just need one of you." the woman said before finally giving some clarity to her identity. "This is Crystal. From the Wakefield estate?"
"Right?" Alois answered, furrowing his brow. He didn't want to hold anything against this woman, as she didn't know how involved she was with the Wakefield incident, but he couldn't help but be irritable from the pain caused by that family. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I know where Blackwood is." she bluntly stated, catching the other completely off guard.
"Do what?" gawked the menace, uncertain as to whether or not he can believe her. Glancing to his concerned looking husband, he reached down and pressed a button on the phone, putting the vampire on speaker. "Blackwood? Where is he? Is he with you?"
"He's in a house in Manchester. A nice one. I can give you the address." the woman replied, causing the bluenette to pull out pen and paper. After being instructed to by the menace, she gave the information without any further coaxing. Immediately, it was jotted down.
"The house is fully of scary looking men." she continued. "I think they're guarding something. Trucks come in sometimes with big boxes in them, but I don't know what's inside."
"Where are you?"
"In the phone box across the street. I'll be gone before you get here."
"We're not after you. Get away from him and we'll be there as soon as we can. Thank you so much, Crystal."
Without another word, Crystal hung up the phone, knowing that the demons would be calling HELLSING at any moment. It was an eye for an eye. Blackwood called the organization on her and her allies, so she did the same. Once that phone was on the receiver, however, it was her time to make her escape.
Or so she thought. Instead, she was startled by the sound of shots ringing out from the house she was monitoring. Against her better judgement, she stayed and watched the house, seeing the curtains move aside and a head peeking through them, checking to see if anyone was outside. Naturally, being in a well-illuminated spot, she was perfectly conspicuous and they locked eyes. The vampire's red eyes stared directly into the singular eye of a madman before the offender bolted from the window and headed toward the front door. Upon seeing this, her body reacted, running out of the booth and starting to run toward cover while she heard the door violently swing open and yelling behind her, followed by more shots.
She ran and she ran, disappearing into some trees before running some more. Crystal could hear people behind her, but then she could hear them in front as well. Whoever was chasing her had split up and boxed her in, unaware of what she was capable of. As soon as a man stepped into her view, she attacked, opening her mouth wide and sinking her teeth into his neck. More gunshots rang out, but this time, they mixed with he sound of screaming.
A/N: Yeah. I cut it off. I'm sorry. We're gonna jump around a little in the next chapter. Should be fun. Very fun.
Sometimes, I worry that I'll never be able to include absolutely everything in this story. There's so much to this world that the actual fic just can't cover! There's characters who you might never see and stories that might never be told... I guess that's what my tumblr is for, but I dunno how into hearing about all that people are... If y'all want it, I'll start posting more of it. I keep most of it to myself!
Also, I got a question:
"HateWeasel: I love the story! I've been here since the start of DLTD. Is it hard to write and do everything else you need to do?" by LOKgirl13
Sometimes. That's why I don't update every day at the moment. Right now, I actually should be writing an essay, but I'm making good time, so I thought I'd wrap this chapter up. If I'm into something, I'll make time for it. I have more energy than I used to, so it's been easier to keep up! I think most of the appeal to this story is the fact that it updates frequently. When I see people recommending it on other websites, that's what's pushed. Be honest, now~
That said, people update at different rates and I think people should stick to what's comfortable for them. I do find that routine helps however, so I would recommend setting a time to update and updating then. Depending on how fast you are, it could be once or twice a week, or even once every month or two. It helps getting it done, and I think it also helps the fanbase, because then they know "oh, X should be updating soon. I should watch for it." Kinda like how Kuro updates every month around the same time? People start looking for it.
Ah, I kind of went off on something else, didn't I?
That said, I skip up to one to three days sometimes when I have schoolwork, but y'all are forgiving, so that helps.
Until the next chapter, my duckies~!
CHARACTER SHET
Question: "To Sebastian: Ever went back to the cat café? And where've you been? We haven't seen you in a while." by LOKgirl13
Sebastian: "Oh, I've beenfulfilling my usual duties, although I do make time once or twice a week to go back to the cafe. I've also been teaching Luka how to hunt, and working on developing hobbies, as the master says that I need some..."
